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Landsat 8 Mission Update

Update for Aug 8, 2013

Landsat 8 officially began normal operations on May 30, 2013, when the leadership for satellite operations transferred from NASA to the U.S. Geological Survey. With the hand-off, the name of the satellite changed from the Landsat Data Continuity Mission to Landsat 8. The USGS now manages the satellite flight operations team within the Mission Operations Center, which remains located at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

The transition followed a 100-day commissioning period during which NASA and the USGS systematically checked out all of the spacecraft and ground subsystems and raised the satellite to its operational orbit at 438 miles (705 kilometers) altitude. Analyses of data collected during this check-out period show that the satellite, sensors and ground system performance metrics exceed specifications in most respects.

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Mission Overview

The Landsat Program is a series of Earth-observing satellite missions jointly managed by NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey. The first Landsat satellite launched in 1972 and the latest satellite in the series, Landsat 8 (formerly the Landsat Data Continuity Mission – LDCM), Launched Feb. 11, 2013